In their quest to compete with cable and satellite companies, telcos around the world have expanded their offerings from telephony to broadband, VoIP, and IPTV. By selling bundles of home entertainment options, telcos have made home networking a significant part of their business strategy, which has increased revenues and reduced customer churn. The challenge now is to make that strategy even more profitable.

Before the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) (www.itu.int) recognized “existing wire” home networking solutions, such as HomePNA, the task of connecting devices throughout the home required CAT5 Ethernet cable. However, CAT5 is not only expensive but also costly in terms of customer satisfaction. Installing CAT5 is time consuming, increases delays between orders and installations, and requires drilling new holes into walls and/or stringing ugly wires along baseboards.

In recent years, however, companies like AT&T, TELUS, and more than 30 other service providers worldwide have increased profits and decreased hassles by using existing coaxial cable and phoneline for home entertainment networking with HomePNA. These companies report that running Triple Play and other applications over existing wires has cut installation time and cost by up to 50 percent.

Even more savings are on the horizon. A new standard G.hn (ITU-T Recommendation G-9960) is ready to deliver breakthrough improvements in home networking performance -- along with easier installations -- over every type of existing wire in the home. G.hn is a technology for home entertainment networking that operates over not only existing coax and phoneline but also powerline. (See Figure 1.)

 
Figure 1. The G.hn chip for home networking enables the delivery of video, voice, and data over existing wires in the home: phoneline, coaxial cable, and powerline.

This article discusses how existing wire solutions will help telcos -- indeed all service providers -- increase the value proposition of home entertainment networking as they seek to offer consumers the benefits of a fully connected home. It will explore ways of maximizing the profits from home entertainment networks even as these networks become more pervasive.

More Bang for the Bundle
Home networks are expanding beyond computers and phones to TVs and consumer electronic devices. As entertainment options increase with whole-home DVR, TiVo, a host of gaming consoles, and more, the number of household devices is increasing, too. For service providers, the key to reaping the financial benefits of a bigger bundle is finding ways to connect and manage a larger ecosystem of devices without sacrificing the bottom line.

CAT5, as mentioned above, is expensive, unsightly, and time consuming to install. Moreover, CAT5 networks are not environmentally friendly, relying on the production of new materials rather than using what already exists in the home. Wireless solutions, though convenient for data transfer, lack the coverage, security, and bandwidth necessary for streaming video content to multiple, high-definition devices. Existing wire solutions, on the other hand, are clean, green, and up-to-the-task of providing carrier class data, voice, and video delivery to a growing assortment of devices.

Here’s how it works. Service providers bring more than enough broadband access to the home. To successfully transmit data, voice, and video inside the home, there must be plenty of bandwidth from room to room -- a digital superhighway from
device to device that can assure that signals are delivered with high efficiency, low latency, minimal jitter, and very little packet loss. These requirements become even more stringent with video streaming. The signals must be delivered reliably and consistently without interruption or glitches that compromise the viewing experience.

To do this, a home networking solution must overcome the challenges of coexistence, noise, and attenuation. For example, IPTV over existing wires needs to coexist with other applications, like VDSL, and avoid frequencies used by other devices operating over the same wires. A modem for the transfer of data, voice, and video requires enough robustness to get packets where they need to go on time, flawlessly, and with low latency.

In 2001, the ITU adopted the first “no new wires” home networking standard. Today, HomePNA 3.1 (ITU standard G.9954) is supported by the HomePNA Alliance, a consortium of leading technology companies. Four out of the top five largest telcos in North America deploying IPTV have selected HomePNA for being high-performance and low-cost. More than 2 million homes are successfully running HomePNA over coax, and that number is growing at a rate of nearly 40,000 new homes each week.

Adding to the efficiency and efficacy of installations, a suite of HomePNA diagnostic tools enables installers to quickly configure, troubleshoot, and repair the home networks onsite and remotely. This increases the confidence of installers and saves a significant amount of time and money in truck rolls.

The Future Is Even Brighter
HomePNA took great steps forward in strengthening, simplifying, and economizing home entertainment networking. With the ITU’s new standard, G.hn, home networking will become even easier and more robust, enabling service providers to offer their customers additional entertainment options while saving unprecedented amounts of time and money on installations.

Figure 2. HomePNA cuts installation times and costs by up to 50 percent. G.hn will save service providers even more time and money.

Figure 3. HomePNA, which is being deployed in 40,000 new home each week, is embedded in a wide range of products for home entertainment networking, including those pictured.

G.hn boasts up to a 1 gigabit PHY rate and carrier-class QoS. The G.hn recommendation was spearheaded in 2006 by the ITU in cooperation with high-profile companies worldwide. The ITU’s main goal was to introduce a single protocol that can be applied to all media (exploiting existing wires) to deliver Triple Play. Home networking devices must be able to communicate with one another. G.hn provides that common protocol over all 3 types of existing wires in the home: phonelines, coax, and powerline.

The addition of powerline to coax and phoneline affords more flexibility to network configuration. It also increases bandwidth within the home and creates opportunities for easy installs. This “self-install” approach to home networking enables customers to simply plug devices into power sockets. The devices are instantly added to the network. By using powerline, there is much less need to configure splitters. This spares service providers the expense of installations and empowers consumers with an easy way to set up and maintain their own home networks.

G.hn Equals Breakthrough Technology
In addition to having a unified PHY/MAC layer technology that can be applied to all media, G.hn technology enables products that will be able to choose the best available medium and path (e.g., those with the least interference from other networks and services). In fact, the G.hn recommendation includes remedies that enable inferring the actual spectral usage without the need for intervention of the customer or installer.

G.hn based products can be designed to bridge traffic among multiple media. Products with multiple ports will easily enable the delivery of services from one medium to another medium. A service can be received by a G.hn transceiver over the coaxial cable and then be retransmitted over a different medium via a different port (e.g., power line) using the same technology.

G.hn Equals More Bandwidth
With more connected devices and more applications for the end-user, it makes sense that home networks will need more bandwidth. G.hn provides more than sufficient bandwidth for enhanced Internet Protocol Television (IPTV), whole-home DVR and Triple Play. It will also support future applications, like 3DTV, telepresence, ultra high-def, cloud computing, and telemedicine -- all of which require "fat pipes" for carrier-class streaming of heavy content. By enabling more applications across a wider range of networked devices, G.hn affords service providers and consumers alike more bang per bundled package.

To meet the demand for bandwidth but still enable low-cost devices, G.hn supports scalable bandwidths of 25MHz, 50MHz, 100MHz and even 200MHz when operating over coax in the RF range. G.hn's extended bandwidths enable rates that are two-to-four times faster than existing technologies. Higher bandwidths are interoperable with lower bandwidths. Therefore, products that support different bandwidths can still belong to the same network.

The G.hn recommendation includes many additional components that improve efficiency of medium utilization, and thus enable higher rates. As an example, G.hn uses an advanced multicast scheme, which saves bandwidth compared to multiple uni-cast schemes or extending the transmission time if using a pre-defined low bit loading. True multicast is the ability to send a single frame to a group of receivers (a multicast group) with a common bit loading. True multicast also means that G.hn is capable of splitting the transmission into several streams when the common bit loading is not efficient. Each stream can be transmitted to more than one receiver. The G.hn acknowledgment scheme of multicasts is also efficient and advanced because it accommodates the size of the group. When the group is relatively small, each receiver can acknowledge explicitly and selectively. On the other hand, for a large group, a single short time period may be allocated, thus enabling each receiver to negatively acknowledge during this time; hence efficiency is high.

In contrast, common schemes use an acknowledgment mechanism per each receiver no matter what the size of the group (which is not efficient for large groups) or use a single proxy receiver to represent the entire group. This is notably unreliable because the proxy receiver may experience interference that is different from other receivers.

G.hn Equals Savings and Economies of Scale
A connected home equals a standardized home. G.hn is emerging as the smartest standard around, offering service providers the chance to spend less overall and get more. There are two main ways G.hn accomplishes this. First, the technology is very robust, requiring fewer truck rolls. Second, it is a self-install solution, empowering customers to take charge, thus saving service providers untold billions on installations and repairs.

G.hn brings simplicity to a more sophisticated era of home networking. It lets service providers offer the latest and greatest in home networking while continuing to scale deployments.

From Drain to Gain
Although G.hn makes home networks simpler and more robust, the increasing number of devices on the network will make some consumers perceive them as more complex. Such consumers might not be comfortable with configuring and maintaining their networks alone. This introduces new revenue-generating opportunities for service providers.

Like in-home monthly wire maintenance fees, service providers can offer "insurance policies" for consumers who are willing to pay more for extra help in configuring and maintaining their networks. Instead of shouldering the financial burden for network repairs -- as many service providers currently do -- service providers can charge for network management and leverage the advantages of G.hn to make such policies profitable. Additional opportunities come in the form of new types of home networks. Service providers are recognizing opportunities in smart energy. In particular, home energy management presents a chance to increase profit margins.

Consumers are looking for low-cost ways to manage home energy consumption. One solution for Home Energy Management is Z-Wave. Embedded in hundreds of interoperable products -- including lighting systems, thermostats, appliances, door locks, and more -- Z-Wave creates a wireless mesh network connecting enabled devices in the home. Soon, those chips will be embedded into set-top boxes and residential gateways, and controlled on the TV or iPod/iPhone. The end result will be a completely connected home with all media over G.hn, data over wireless, and energy management and control over Z-Wave.

This synergy benefits customers by keeping them abreast of their energy consumption, saving them money on electric bills, and delivering the conveniences of the automated home. Service providers stand to gain from a G.hn/Z-Wave partnership because of the value these consumer benefits add to their bundled packages.

G.hn Helps Monetize the Home Network
G.hn chips are expected to be available later this year, and G.hn-embedded products are expected to be available in early to mid 2011. Supporting these developments is the HomeGrid Forum (www.homegridforum.org), a global, non-profit trade group promoting the ITU's standardization efforts for next-generation home networking. Comprised of leading companies in the multi-media home networking industry, the HomeGrid Forum aims to make the smart home a smart reality with a G.hn's all-wire solution for delivering the latest in entertainment, automation, and energy management to households all over the world.

As home networks become more pervasive, G.hn is keeping things simple and cost-effective. With reliable delivery of data, voice, and video over all existing wires in the home, the G.hn standard will make the smart home an increasingly smart place to be for service providers and consumers alike. With simple networking comes the potential to change the service provider's business model -- transforming installations and maintenance from a cost drain to a revenue gain while giving consumers more of what they've come to demand from home entertainment networking.

About the Author
Reuven Franco is the G.hn Product Manager, Home Connectivity Business Unit, Sigma Designs, Inc. He was formerly a product line manager at CopperGate Communications Ltd., which was acquired by Sigma in 2009. Reuven has been active in the International Telecommunication Union's G.hn and G.9954 (HomePNA 3.1) work groups. He also worked at STMicroelectronics (formerly Tioga/Orckit) where he dealt with SHDSL, ADSL, and VDSL technologies. For more information, visit www.copper-gate.com and www.sigmadesigns.com.

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